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Sperm washing is a safe option for HIV serodiscordant couples wishing to conceive, according to a retrospective study involving eight European clinics published in the September edition of AIDS.

The study involved 1036 couples where the man was HIV-positive and the women HIV-negative. These couples had over 3000 cycles of assisted reproduction using washed sperm. Not a single case of HIV transmission occurred. On the basis of this finding the investigators write, “it is neither ethically nor legally justifiable to exclude individuals from infertility services on the basis of male HIV-infection.”

...

Treatment resulted in pregnancy on at least one occasion in 499 (48%) women, with the total number of pregnancies being 533.

There were 410 deliveries involving 468 live births (this included 29 sets of twins and 13 sets of triplets). There were two neonatal deaths, 112 miscarriages, eight extra-uterine pregnancies, two terminations, and one intrauterine death.

HIV antibody tests were performed on 97% of the women within six months of receiving an assisted reproductive cycle involved washed sperm. None of the women test HIV-positive. This allowed the investigators to calculate the probability of HIV transmission of sperm washing to be zero (95% confidence interval, 0 – 0.09%). The 3% of women who were not tested for HIV within six months of their cycles all came from the same Italian centre.

The investigators comment, “the present study is the first multicentre study of the use of sperm washing in HIV-1-serodiscordant couples…it is the largest series published to date and the first with sufficient case numbers to confirm the safety and efficacy of assisted reproduction where sperm washing was used as the primary means of avoiding HIV infection in the female partner.”

newt notes: to be strict this study shows that in 97% of cases, there was no HIV transmssion and therefore we can conclude with great confidence that sperm washing poses no risk of HIV transmission.